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by interlude



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 23:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11679345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interlude/pseuds/interlude
Summary: John and Emori have their first big fight four months into living on the Ring.A response to the current panic in the Memori fandom and Richard Harmon's comments at SDCC.





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**Author's Note:**

> I won't worry about Memori breaking up until I see it happen. They developed them as such an affection, lovely, supporting, and loyal couple in season 4 that I doubt the writers are going to suddenly break them up.
> 
> But even healthy couples sometimes have fights, and I believe there's going to be more fighting than we're used to between them on the Ring due to all the stress and fear that comes with their current situation.
> 
> Also, sappy ending is sappy.

 

“Home isn't where you're from, it's where you find light when all grows dark.”

― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

 

 

 

 

They have their first big fight four months into living on the Ring.

 

John ends up red faced and spitting with anger. Emori hits pressure points and digs her insults in like a knife.

 

It’s about something stupid, and neither of them remember how it started, or why they cared enough to argue, but it ends in screaming. Bitter, angry insults explode out of them, echo off the metal walls that make up their bedroom.

 

John feels trapped in the Ark, caged by the thick walls around him. It reminds him too much of the bunker, or the temple in Polis, or even the Skybox cell he lived in for years, and he sometimes swears he can’t breathe, that he’s running out of air, that he’s choking to death – for real this time.

 

When he’s not looking at the Ring around him like a prison, or like a death sentence, he sees a cemetery. Ghosts trail the hallways and the rooms, and he feels as haunted by the good memories as he is the bad, constantly swaying on the precipice of his past, so close to hurtling back into things he never wants to revisit.

 

Emori feels cut off from everything she’s ever known. She’s used to change, and had thought she’d prepared herself for life in space, but she never expected the coldness of the Ring, the complete absence of the sun and her fading sense of time. Days pass without end, weeks pass faster than she expects, and she feels unanchored, spinning out into oblivion, like a boat that hasn’t been tied to shore and floats away on the waves. She feels sick, too, unused to an algae-based diet, unfamiliar with recycled air, her body rebelling against her environment as much as her mind.

 

They tear at each other because they can’t tear at the Ark – because John can’t escape and Emori can’t return to Earth.

 

The fight ends abruptly. Emori storms out, and the door slams shut behind her; the sudden sound reverberates deep in John’s bones, leaving him unsteady, unraveled, and his voice dies instantly in his throat. The room falls into silence, cold and stifling. The anger bleeds away. Left in its place is fear and pain and a horrible, clawing regret that scrapes at his insides and his throat.

 

He wants to run after her and apologize, to beg for her forgiveness because he’s lost every good thing in his life and he can’t lose her too, even if he deserves it. But he thinks she won’t want him to follow her, that he’s ruined it already and shouldn’t bother.

 

So he stays alone in their bedroom. He opens the door again and props it open once more, but he doesn't feel any less trapped. He doesn’t sleep at all that night, though he tries. His bed is cold without her, strangely empty; he feels lonelier than he has in months, and it’s an awful, bitter reminder of how he used to live. He hates it. He hates himself. He wishes he hated things less.

 

Hours later, the hallways lights flicker on to signal morning, and he drags himself up only because he has a job to do. He moves like a dead man, slow and stilted, devoid of energy, and by the time evening rolls around he feels even worse.

 

Emori isn’t in their room when he gets back; the small bit of hope he held onto all day fades away, because she always comes back to find him and she hasn’t.

 

John only falls asleep that night because he’s so exhausted, and he wakes to Raven knocking on his open door. She looks – well, he doesn’t know how she looks, exactly. Angry? Disappointed in him? Sympathetic?

 

“Your girlfriend’s sleeping at Jasper’s Window,” Raven says, using the name that Monty had given it and they've all adopted. “I don’t know what that’s all about, but fix it.” She starts to leave, then pauses, hangs back. “ _Fuck_ ,” she breathes, and it sounds painful, wrapped in anger and hurt and spilling out of her. “We have enough problems. We can’t start hurting each other.”

 

And then she’s gone and John doesn’t have time to worry about Raven or her pain, because he fucked up and Emori is hurt and he can’t sleep another night without her, it’s killing him.

 

She’s wrapped up in a blanket and leaning against the window. He wonders why she didn’t go to sleep in the Skybox where there are cots, but then sees that her eyes are open and realizes she isn’t sleeping at all. She’s staring at the Earth, red and hot and as volatile as their fight, looking nothing like the place he had come to know – nothing like the place she grew up in.

 

He sits beside her, keeping some distance in case she doesn’t want him to touch her. When he speaks his voice breaks, and it’s ugly and knotted, tangled up with so many emotions he can’t even sort through them all. “I’m sorry. Emori, I’m so sorry.” He thinks he’s apologizing as much for the Ark as he is for the fight. “I hate this place,” he says, and he doesn’t know how to bare his soul more than that. He doesn't have to. She’s always understood him better than anyone.

 

Emori turns her gaze away from the window; she angels her body towards him and buries her face in his neck, shutting all of the world out but him. She's shaking. John wraps his arms around her and pulls her even closer, tucking her into his side. They clutch tight to each other.

 

“I’m so sorry, John,” Emori whispers into his skin. “I miss the ground. I miss trees. I miss the sun. I miss -" she breaks off, voice hitching, then collects herself and adds with venom, "I hate space.”

 

He strokes his fingers gently through her hair. “It’s okay,” he says. “We just have to wait it out. We're not going to be here forever. You’ll get to go home one day, Emori.”

 

She shakes her head, and it kills him for a moment to think she’s lost all hope, that she doesn’t believe it, but instead she says, “We’ll get to go back to _the ground_. I am home. _You’re_ my home.”

 


End file.
